Image by Jorden Pompey | The Crow’s Nest
After a 13 game winning streak, the USF men’s basketball team is ranked among the Associated Press top 25 for the first time in program history.
“Rank us” read a sign among the record audience at the Yuengling Center on Feb. 18 when the Bulls basketball team faced state rival Florida Atlantic University.
After a heart-stopping second period, USF took the win 90-86, defending its top spot in the American Athletic Conference and increasing its winning streak to 11 consecutive games.
“I knew we were on a pretty good run, I didn’t know [11],” said head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim during the post game press conference.
Despite talk on social media about the possibility of the Bulls ranking, the Associated Press’ (AP) week 16 official rankings said otherwise.
With their eyes on the bigger prize, USF took the road to face The University of Texas at San Antonio on Feb. 21 for another encounter not for the faint of heart.
Once again, the Bulls took the win 66-61 and increased its streak to 12 — tying the program’s record from the 1980-81 season.
Sunday brought a much necessary change of pace as the Bulls dominated for most of the game, resulting in a constant buzz of excitement from another sellout crowd in Tampa.
With the 79-68 win against Southern Methodist University, not only did USF set a new program record, it also positioned itself as the second biggest winning streak in the nation and is currently one win away from obtaining the AAC title.
But there is more.
For the first time ever in program history, the men’s basketball team was ranked amongst AP’s top 25 in the nation.
In the 25th spot, USF is proceeded by the University of Florida, Gonzaga, Utah State, Dayton and San Diego College.
The top five teams are the University of Houston, Purdue, University of Connecticut, Tennessee and Marquette.
“South Florida has been a surprise. It is [the] first season under Amir Abdur-Rahim, who led a remarkable turnaround at Kennesaw State from a one-win season to an NCAA tournament bid last year,” ESPN said. “Now he has helped the Bulls (21-5) go from being picked ninth in the [AAC] to their first ever ranking at No. 25.”
According to USF Athletics, the closest the men’s basketball team has gotten to being ranked was in 1991 when USF got 58 votes in the AP poll two spots out of 25th after beating Iowa. Two nights later, on New Year’s Eve, the Bulls lost to Cincinnati, an eventual Final 4 team.
The Bulls will play for the conference in Charlotte at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 2 and will come back home to play Tulane on Tuesday, March 5.
Despite the high stakes and the national recognition and coverage, one thing is for sure — as coach Abdur-Rahim says “this ain’t the same ole South Florida anymore.”
